Battle Studies; Ancient and Modern Battle

by Charles Jean Jacques Joseph Ardant du Picq

We cannot resist closing intervals between battalions; as if we were still in the times of the pikemen when, indeed, it was possible to pass through an interval! To-day, the fighting is done ten times farther away, and the intervals between battalions are not weak joints. They are covered by the fire of the skirmishers, as well covered by fire as the rest of the front, and invisible to the enemy.

Skirmishers and masses are the formations for action of poorly instructed French troops. With instruction and unity there would be skirmishers supported and formation in battalion columns at most.

Troops in close order can have only a moral effect, for the attack, or for a demonstration. If you want to produce a real effect, use musketry. For this it is necessary to form a single line. Formations have purely moral effect. Whoever counts on their material, effective action against reliable, cool troops, is mistaken and is defeated. Skirmishers alone do damage. Picked shots would do more if properly employed.

In attacking a position, start the charge at the latest possible moment, when the leader thinks he can reach the objective not all out of breath. Until then, it has been possible to march in rank, that is under the officers, the rank not being the mathematical line, but the grouping in the hands of the leader, under his eye. With the run comes confusion. Many stop, the fewer as the run is shorter. They lie down on the way and will rejoin only if the attack succeeds, if they join at all. If by running too long the men are obliged to stop in order to breathe and rest, the dash is broken, shattered. At the advance, very few will start. There are ten chances to one of seeing the attack fail, of turning it into a joke, with cries of "Forward with fixed bayonet," but none advancing, except some brave men who will be killed uselessly. The attack vanishes finally before the least demonstration of the foe. An unfortunate shout, a mere nothing, can destroy it.

Absolute rules are foolish, the conduct of every charge being an affair requiring tact. But so regulate by general rules the conduct of an infantry charge that those who commence it too far away can properly be accused of panic. And there is a way. Regulate it as the cavalry charge is regulated, and have a rearguard in each battalion of non-commissioned officers, of most reliable officers, in order to gather together, to follow close upon the charge, at a walk, and to collect all those who have lain down so as not to march or because they were out of breath. This rearguard might consist of a small platoon of picked shots, such as we need in each battalion. The charge ought to be made at a given distance, else it vanishes, evaporates. The leader who commences it too soon either has no head, or does not want to gain his objective.

The infantry of the line, as opposed to elite commands, should not be kept in support. The least firm, the most impressionable, are thus sent into the road stained with the blood of the strongest. We place them, after a moral anxiety of waiting, face to face with the terrible destruction and mutilation of modern weapons. If antiquity had need of solid troops as supports, we have a greater need of them. Death in ancient combat was not as horrible as in the modern battle where the flesh is mangled, slashed by artillery fire. In ancient combat, except in defeat, the wounded were few in number. This is the reply to those who wish to begin an action by chasseurs, zouaves, etc.

He, general or mere captain, who employs every one in the storming of a position can be sure of seeing it retaken by an organized counter-attack of four men and a corporal.

In order that we may have real supervision and responsibility in units from companies to brigades, the supporting troops ought to be of the same company, the same battalion, the same brigade, as the case may be. Each brigade ought to have its two lines, each battalion its skirmishers, etc.

The system of holding out a reserve as long as possible for independent action when the enemy has used his own, ought to be applied downwards. Each battalion should have its own, each regiment its own, firmly maintained.

There is more need than ever to-day, for protecting the supporting forces, the reserves. The power of destruction increases, the morale remains the same. The tests of morale, being more violent than previously, ought to be shorter, because the power of morale has not increased. The masses, reserves, the second, the first lines, should be protected and sheltered even more than the skirmishers.